As soon as I wake up each morning I put on C-Span's Washington Journal.
As I was listening to this one I thought that I'd missed the beginning. But when I went here I saw that I'd actually heard it all. However, because it was so interesting and because I wanted to pass on some of it here, I listened to it two more times while working today and took some notes.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?473372-3/ ... s-pandemic
Here are my notes. I really liked the 40% / 60% explanation of how the brain takes in information. Explains A LOT!
Vinny
Scott Rasmussen - a pollster and political analyst.
ScottRasmussen.com
1) 64% believe worst of pandemic still to come -- most pessimistic assessment yet measured.
2) Expect a roller coaster - will get higher and lower. There are no feelings of unity regarding this.
3) People who are actually working in the public are more optimistic than those working from home.
4) Republicans saying too much money has already been spent. That is a definite political minus.
5) If there were a choice between reimbursing business for their losses versus assisting state governments it's fairly clear that there is more support for the former.
6) If the election was held today the president would lose as well as the Senate being lost. But we are currently in a time of extreme volatility. We have two major events that started six months prior to the election. The virus and its financial consequences plus civil rights. This is why Biden has such a lead. If improved news comes out then there can be a shift. If protests were to become more violent with then more of an emphasis on law and order then that would produce more shift.
7) Biden's lead has come from former Trump voters not becoming Biden voters but becoming undecided. Maybe 5% or 6% of voters.
The range of outcome could be a Trump victory or a historic loss for an incumbent like Hoover experienced in 1932.
9) The founder of Pixar stated that there is scientific evidence that what our brain sees is only 40% of what we see with the balance what we expect to see. Therefore that is going to cause both Democrats and Republicans to interpret the same information differently. Same as fans in the sports bar seeing the same thing differently from the fans of the other team.
10) The people sitting at home are the professional, educated class and are more in line with the media and their views.
11) The role of the media is to be distrusted in the modern era. People treat reporters with the same credibility of a Wikipedia entry. It's a sad state of affairs.
12) The cable stations emphasize different stories. There are stories 100% factual yet they don't get recognized as creditable.
13) I can go to any audience and use actual government information to say spending has gone up, down, or stay the same. The same can now be said for the covid statistics. We will have to wait a year to see what the real story is with the deaths from the covid virus. We are going to be arguing about this. Today I can make either case.
14) At the end of World War II the government had a huge deficit related to GDP. After a generation it came down. The same will have to happen with the huge deficit generated by the virus. It will have to be dealt with over a long period of time with some programs being cut but it will not be solved over the short-term via increased taxation.